


Entertainment

by haganenoheichou



Category: Monster (Manga)
Genre: Gen, M/M, one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7112764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haganenoheichou/pseuds/haganenoheichou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor Tenma was Johan's trigger to humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entertainment

**Author's Note:**

> So I had to write a little ficlet for these two because it's long overdue – I watched Monster ages ago and I still can't get over it.

If someone were to ask him when his obsession with Kenzou Tenma had begun, Johan would have a hard time pinpointing the exact moment – because for him, life was a line made up of dashes, varying in length, stretches of clarity followed by blankness; and then again, reason picked up somehow, reminding him of the fact that though he was in every was _different_ , that he was special… He was also unmistakably human. 

It was strange: ever since he'd met Doctor Tenma, he had been in this weird state of lucidity. Almost like the rest of them, the ants he enjoyed toying with – but not quite. 

Doctor Tenma had been his key to humanity. 

Johan resented him for it. The monster inside him cowered, fearful that something much stronger could take hold of Johan’s injured body – emotion. Feeling. He fought hard to erase it. 

Then he realized that he was not to blame. He wasn’t supposed to take responsibility for another man’s mistakes. For unleashing the monster that slept inside of Johan’s head.

Kenzou Tenma would bear the burden of erasing him. 

Johan spent hours watching the good doctor’s reputation deteriorate. He examined the man’s reactions, cataloging every single quirk of his mouth, every single wrinkle in his brow, every single time Tenma almost lost his way and succumbed to frustration and fear. Tenma was an unfathomable creature: he was a walking paradox. So moral. So strangely good. And yet aiming to murder. In his head, Johan knew, Tenma was convinced he was the lowest of all the scum on Earth. 

The thought was hilarious. Johan pictured Tenma tearing his own hair out, pacing the numerous ratty hotel rooms he exchanged day after day. A talented surgeon, homeless. A talented surgeon, on the run. A talented surgeon, friendless and alone, with only a gun to his name.

It was pretty funny.

Ever since he’d woken up, Johan had been having flashbacks. Strange non-memories of what was and what could have been. Thoughts of _why_ he did the things he did, _reasons_ , sent him into panic. More often than not, he would wake up panting, eyes wide open, unseeing, paralyzed with fear. 

It was the memory of Tenma’s voice that soothed his anguish. He recalled the exact moment when he'd first remembered the melody of Tenma’s words, reaching out to him, speaking to him, calming him even as he had slept, a comatose boy. Tenma had sat vigil by his bedside, his large hands cupping Johan’s smaller ones, his words slightly accented as he spoke about his life in Japan, his life in Germany, his life in the future. Johan was sure he was the only person on Earth who knew all these things about Tenma. 

He was desperate to know more. 

Tenma was hard to read. He was predictable, yes, but his actions never corresponded with what went on in his head. He was like a scattered mosaic, all over the place, waiting for Johan to piece him together and then bring the hammer down one last time. 

Resentment was the first emotion Tenma had managed to trigger in him. He had resented the way the bigwigs at the hospital had treated the good man who’d saved his life. So he’d disposed of them. Easy.

Next had been jealousy. His sister, of all people, had gotten close to Tenma – and Johan hadn’t like it one little bit. Separating the two had been easy, though – both Anna and the good doctor had been too noble to share the blame for Johan’s potential future death.

He speculated quite often on whether he was in love with Doctor Tenma. The conclusion he reached every time, after hours, sometimes days, of solid contemplation, was _maybe_. Uncertainty was not a satisfying feeling. 

He wondered whether someone like him could even feel something as _human_ as love. He wondered whether he was _allowed_ to. 

He wondered whether Tenma could ever _consider_ the idea of a feeling this pure brewing within Johan. 

It was preposterous, yes. The Monster couldn't feel. 

But Johan couldn't make himself angry at the doctor. He couldn't make himself dispose of his one trigger to humanity. No. 

Tenma was an entertaining man. Johan followed him around, throwing him a bone from time to time, giving him hope and then taking it away and… Tenma never lost it. He kept pushing on, forcing himself to continue this senseless game of cat and mouse. 

Johan wondered whether he really was the cat sometimes.

Once, through the window of Tenma’s hotel room, he'd watched from across the street as the Doctor had undressed himself, meticulously folding his clothing. He’d watched Tenma lie down on the bed, rigid as a board. He wondered whether after everything he’d seen, everything he’d witness Johan do, the man could ever be attracted to anyone. 

He'd turned away.

Respect was one of the things that stayed with Johan. Out of the entire world, all the billions of people who walked the Earth, he'd chosen Tenma to respect.

To worship. 

To adore.

To kill him when the time came. 

When he’d had enough of his game. 

Johan found himself thinking he’d perhaps be sad if Tenma stopped being entertaining. 


End file.
